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Show 4 -f ! Cooperative Bv.ying in ' the National Capital ! '! I By Frederic J. Haskin. 4 4 WASHINGTON', July 31. In t'ic'elty of Wa-ihinton, w:iich has firmly ostub-li?h-0 Itso'.f ,is tlv romtminit y of tlioni in tho I'liimd SIh'i-s in w iiirli t'io oost or living Ik h; iciest tli t-oTiiinunit.,' in wldch moif5, for f x;im plf. sol! rj;u. a I'ly fir L'S p-.T re? it more t han I -iey 'o In RaUinioi'1, fortv miU'S iiw.iy the reopl'1 have at lat taken t!i lit i:i '.heir teeth and arc or L'anizin' a enopprat ive buying aseney. tn lc piai'Oil at tlie di.cP'',sal (f the whole eoriinuin!t,t which will r-chase r-chase direct from the producer and deliver de-liver direct to the consumer, many of the staples of everyday existence. So they have hit upon the idea OT fonnlnp community fmid -selling oiKttil-zation oiKttil-zation which will enahle them to pet food practically "at cost. The pi-opbsed plan is to eliminate the middleman in all food transa ft ions; to use the public school houses as distributing centers and lo ; make even housewife in the district a ' member of tho organization without ask-I ask-I intr her to pubscribe n nickel. I This Is the first instance in the his-! his-! tory of the country where an entire city ! has undertaken to unite all the inhabitants inhabit-ants into one lar-a cooperative atretic, j There are a number of small cooperative organizations in this cjtv and elsewhere, i but only those who have subscribed for ! stock can trade In them. Such is tlie : plan of most cooperative ns'encies here, and in Europe. The community orpanl- zation proposed for Washington will take In every family in the district. The whole scheme Is nothiner more than the enlargement of a plan that has proved , successful on n small scale. For several years. John . McOrath, an employee of the treasury department, has been act-in act-in ? the role of fairy prince to a larpre number of other federal workers, helping them to purchase at cost much of 'the food used on their tables. His plan was to po into tho territory surround in g Washington and buy up foodstuffs from the farmers and then sell it to his friends and other people in the departments, depart-ments, lie pot nothinp for his trouble, except the pleasure of operating his hobby. hob-by. Tlie only additional chnrtre to the consumer was (lie cost of transportation. The demand for such food was always greater than the supply, as the price penerallv ranged from 10 to 25 per cent below what It would cost at the market. mar-ket. Tn earrvinp . on this business, from which he derived no profit, Mr. MoGrnth" made use of twp public apencles the parcel par-cel post and the school house. The cheap parcel post rate of one cent per pound within a radius of InO miles made it possible for him to have food shipped into the district quickly and cheaply. In rase of extra larpe shipments he would dispose of the food at a school house, otherwise the sale would be made at his home. ; i Those experimental food shipments included in-cluded potatoes, dairy products, poultry and fruits. Mr. McOrath had an understand under-stand (np with certain farmers that he would buy everything1 they could aenrt him. So in this wav when he contracted with one producer for his output of epps and another for his butter crop, there was not much detail baipainlnp to be done. Likewise was the wholesale problem prob-lem for the farmer solved throuph this one customer. The saving in dairy products prod-ucts and poultry to the people who could take advantage of the McOrath cooperative coopera-tive plan wrb very considerable. Last Christmas. Mr. McGrath contracted for l.'OO pounds of turkey for "9 cents per pound, and delivered to' his people at this figure, while tho market price was from . 50 to 60 cents. Mr. McG.rath's experiments convince him that his plan of cooperative buying buy-ing and selling can be carried out on a much larger scale so that a greater number num-ber of people can be benefited by it. Tie recently explained his views to a representative- meeting of the citizens and they asked hlrn to work with a committee commit-tee selected from the various labor unions un-ions in the district to outline a plan for a permanent community food-selling organization. or-ganization. This is now being done. The cooperative idea is not new by anv means. It has been practiced in the British Isles and the continent of Europe Eu-rope for many years. The Rochedale plan of cooperation has been found to work most successfully in England. This plan is for a number of families to group themselves together and operate a cooperative co-operative store. They generally pay the conducted. The failure of tlie niovema. " to sain ground In the United Stairs attributed chiefly to the fact that sinr. the days of the Civil war thin coum- u has been a land of plenty anil the limmi. '. wives dirt not have to worry-much alx.v i, whore and how they would ohtuin tw !' The American t housewife would iai... , pay a few pennies more for a cominuilii !! at. tho corner .store than take the tronli. to make the purchase a littie less con C venlently at a cooperative store. Was1 inplon has made this careless shopr'i K easy by developing 2000 little coin. k stores. The prices that are chnrKeil for foul, p throuRhout the country continue to li tl crease month by month. That relief e n peeted from wartime food prices has n n arrived. In fact foods are higher toili, 8 than they were a year ago. To he am, tl there is such prosperity in the land tic, ti these prices are not generally felt. . k WashihKlon, however, whore price pro; i; lteerins has always been notorious, tl. government clerk has no opportunity ; v. participate in the general prosperity . Je generally Retting the same $1400 or jiv b he Rot before the war and is support J in?; a family on it. He is trying to pro tect himself by cooperative buying. rr market price for what they buy at the store, but the earnings of the business is returned to customers in proportion to the total amount o oods uurchased. During the past three-quarters of a century, up to the outbreak of the recent war, the membership in the cooperative societies In most of tho European countries coun-tries has practically doubled itself each ten years. The circumstances of tlie great struggle have caused It to grow at even a faster rate. Economic adversity seems to promote cooperation. Today tho movement move-ment has spread so phenomenally over the British Isles and the continent of rope that the movement is said to have passed from a minority to a majority of the total population. Everything and anything has come to be included in the cooperative idea. Food, clothing, housing, fuel, insurance, transportation trans-portation and entertainment are all provided pro-vided by cooperative societies for their members. In Europe, great trusts have gone down before this idea. In Switzerland it vanquished the beef trust, in Sweden, tlie sugar trust and the soap trust in England. In these countries it has accomplished ac-complished for the worker greater victories vic-tories than he has been able to attain through the ballot box. The worker has simply reached out to help himself, and there seems to be no limit to the extent to which he may go by making use of the cooperative schemp. One of the best results noted from the cooperative movement bv those who have made a close study of it is the teaching of people to do things for themselves without asking or accepting aid from tho state. It is teaching tho workers to administer their own affairs. It has served to train men in organization. Some of Europe's foremost statesmen of today received their preliminary training in managing the affairs of cooperative wholesale societies. In this country, the cooperative plan is not practiced fo any great extent, although al-though there are certain sections of the country, particularly the northwest, where cooperative stores are being successfully |